Kids & YA August Round-Up

It’s an all-Australian collection for children and teens this month with a fantastic selection that includes literary legends as well as an exciting debut.



A child’s first step means the world to parents and in Bob Graham’s new picture book this milestone is given the spotlight as well as a wider context when we’re shown what else is going on in other people’s lives at the exact same moment. Read Alexa Dretzke’s review here. It’s difficult to describe what picture books should achieve - the ones that will last and serve a deeper purpose. I always say “I’ll know it when I see it”. Silver Buttons is it.

Fellow kids-lit veteran Paul Jennings, whose hugely successful career is nearing the 30-year mark, has a new series called Don’t Look Now with a cartoonist whose work will be familiar to readers of any Australian newspaper as well as Private Eye and The New Yorker, Andrew Weldon. The Carlton store were lucky enough to have Andrew visit us on National Bookshop Day (there might even be a signed copy or two left if you’re quick!). There are already two books in the series available and it looks like the rest will follow swiftly, satisfying those impatient 6-9 year olds who love silliness, dry humour and mayhem.

Another household name with a new book out is Morris Gleitzman with Extra Time. The novel begins in a small country town in Australia, where a teenage boy’s remarkable soccer skills earn him a place at one of Europe’s big clubs. His sister Bridie travels with him and owns this funny narrative that is full of heart, especially in terms of sibling relationships.

If I could give an award for beautiful cover design, the next two books would be very difficult to chose between. And the first,

The Wishbird

, was painted by the author.

Nothing I could say about who should read The Wishbird by Gabrielle Wang or why they should do so could come close to what fellow Melbourne author Cath Crowley had to say at the launch recently, so here’s a link to Cath’s launch speech.

Gabrielle Wang was another of our National Bookshop Day visitors. Signed copies also feature a beautiful wishbird stamp that Gabrielle carries around with her.

Pureheart

by Cassandra Golds has a cover as beautiful and whimsical as the story it is wrapped around.

Inspired by Arthurian myth, Pureheart is about two wonderful, tragic young people - Gal and Deidre - whose past is deeply buried in a labyrinthine house. I fell for it in every way.

Later this month I’ll be chairing a talk at the Melbourne Writers Festival called “Hooked On Classics” with guests Cassandra Golds talking about Pureheart alongside Alison Croggon, whose YA novel Black Spring was inspired by Wuthering Heights.

Finally we come to a debut YA novel: The Sky So Heavy. Before I came to Readings I read manuscripts for a literary agent. I read hundreds of them. In the case of just a handful of these manuscripts I can remember exactly where I was and how I felt when I was reading them - The Sky So Heavy, about teenagers in the Blue Mountains abandoned in a nuclear winter, was one of those. I read and loved the manuscript in 2011, and I was delighted to read it again in book form a few weeks ago. Fin, the main character, is someone teen readers will want to spend time with, and the gradual disintegration of a community in peril is sensitively explored. I’m looking forward to more YA novels from Claire Zorn.

See you on the other side of the Melbourne Writers Festival!


Emily Gale